The world is watching oil. It should be watching helium. Qatar’s Ras Laffan shutdown has removed a third of global helium supply — and the consequences for semiconductor manufacturing, AI hardware, and the entire chip ecosystem are only now becoming clear.
In the time it takes to walk from your car to your desk, one Trump Truth Social post added $1.7 trillion to stocks and crashed oil $17. Then Iran called it fake news, and half the gains vanished. This is now the operating environment. Brent is $104. The IEA says this is worse than the 1970s oil shocks. And traders appear to have been positioned 15 minutes before the announcement.
Iran is laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. A new Supreme Leader has vowed to keep it closed. The largest emergency oil release in history — 400 million barrels — failed to push prices down. Brent is holding above $100 for the first time since 2022. The game has changed again.
Brent breached $110 this morning. Iraq’s output collapsed 70%. Kuwait declared force majeure. Qatar’s LNG is gone. UAE is cutting. Saudi Arabia’s Shaybah field was hit by 20 drones overnight. This is no longer a supply risk — it is a supply collapse.
An on-the-ground data analysis of every oil field struck, every refinery shut down, and every barrel strandedand what it means for global crude prices across three scenarios.
